


Night Habits on the Unreliable

by incognitoinsomniac



Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: Banter, Gen, Inappropriate Humor, Insomnia, Late Night Conversations, No Romance, No Smut, Nudity, just silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22604374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incognitoinsomniac/pseuds/incognitoinsomniac
Summary: As Captain Alysia wanders the ship at night in search of sleep, she stops at the good vicar's room. What she finds behind the door is not what she expected.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 41





	Night Habits on the Unreliable

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired to write this from a beautiful Vicar Max piece created by minilev and commissioned by floral-and-fine, who gave me the blessing to post my silly fic and link the artwork. I hope you all enjoy ^_^
> 
> See links below:
> 
> [ Vicar Max Artwork ](https://floral-and-fine.tumblr.com/post/190061170454/another-amazing-piece-by-minilev-of-my-new)  
> [ floral-and-fine ](https://floral-and-fine.tumblr.com/)  
> [ minilev ](https://minilev.tumblr.com/)

Alysia stared at the top of her bunk for hours, bleary eyed and unable to get an ounce of sleep. Her anxieties surrounding the future of Halcyon, her compatriots still in stasis on the Hope, and the crew of the Unreliable, swirled tumultuously behind her eyes. Frustration finally overcame her exhaustion. She dragged herself up and out of her quarters pulling a thick knit cardigan around her as she left.

She padded quietly down the halls in her pajamas and bare feet to the Unreliable’s command center. The view past the screens offered her the same empty black space as the windows in her own room. As she clicked through screens, she decided she was too tired to go over the maps and mission dossiers. They would have to wait for morning and the disgusting sludge a merchant on Groundbreaker had offered her when she had asked for coffee. In Alysia’s mind, the fact that the entire concept of coffee no longer existed within Halcyon was a truly bad omen for the future.

She gave a half-hearted goodbye to ADA and shuffled into the ship’s hold. There, she fiddled for a short while with her hunting rifle hoping the routine work of cleaning it would quiet her mind. While the familiar disassembly and subsequent reassembly had a calming effect, she failed to find the peace of mind normally offered to her by the feel of the intricate gun parts in her hands.

Finally, she made her way up to the kitchen. Nyoka was snoring away on the couch as usual. She would eventually make her way back to her room, but Alysia tried her best not to wake her. She considered a midnight snack but doubted it would actually help. So, she left Nyoka to sleep her latest binge off and padded back toward her room.

She stopped in-front of the Vicar’s door. When he had first joined the crew, he had offered up his extensive book collection to her whenever she may require it. Infuriating insomnia seemed as good a time as any to take him up on the offer. Additionally, he continually reminded her and the rest of the crew that he held an open-door policy. They were welcome to stop by at any time for consultation, day or night. This probably wasn’t what he meant. But Alysia was sure she could sneak in and take a book without rousing him.

She pressed the door control. As it quietly swished open, she stepped silently into his room. Then she stopped in her tracks. The Vicar was wide awake and reading a book in bed. “Vic, I-” she began to apologize for the intrusion. But she abruptly stopped mid-sentence as her brain registered the full situation.

In addition to being awake and reading a book, Vicar Max was completely naked. He was lounging on his side with one leg bent up foot flat on the bed and the other relaxed out. The position left nothing to the imagination. It also stunned Alysia into complete silence, her mind unable to work through the initial shock. The doors swished closed behind her as she stood there a proverbial deer in the headlights.

Having found whatever stopping place he deemed sufficient, Max closed his book using his thumb as a bookmark and looked up at Alysia with a critical eye. “Captain, did no one teach you that staring is rude?” he admonished.

Her eyes snapped to his, as she felt a blush spread from her ears through her cheeks engulfing her entire face. “Errr right yeah,” she mumbled, “I'm gonna,” she turned to the door control pad.

Before she could even activate the door, Max asserted, “You came here for something. What was it?”

“Not important,” she urged stabbing two fingers at the control pad. It beeped in response, but the door remained firmly shut. She hurriedly pushed the pad again obtaining the same result. She was trapped.

“Captain,” he continued to prod despite her clear attempts to leave the conversation.

“It can wait for morning,” she growled in frustration furiously tapping the pad over and over to no avail.

A groan of defeat escaped her lips as she let her head fall against the door. Of course this heaping pile of scrap metal she had inherited would malfunction at the worst time imaginable. When she closed her eyes all she could see was the lounging naked form of the vicar with a cheeky grin across his face. 

She heard him shift behind her then the soft plop of feet on the smooth metal floor. She assumed his shift was for her benefit more than for his own. Then he grumbled with a sigh, “You're here now. You might as well go ahead and ask.” While he sounded a bit vexed, there was an air of supportive kindness in his voice that was common for the vicar. Perhaps his offer of open-door consultation any time of day was truly genuine.

Alysia anxiously ran a hand through her turquoise shock of hair then sighed and turned back toward him. She jumped in surprise. While Max had moved to a sitting position, his legs were wide open with no attempt made to conceal anything.

She covered her face with her hand pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation. “Vicar,” she sighed with a shake of her head primarily in attempt to shake the image of him from her mind. It didn’t work. Regret at opening his door increased with every passing moment that she was trapped in his room.

Alysia took a deep breath, shoring up some strength, before she continued, “I am simply having a crisis of conscience over some of our most recent encounters. And it's keeping me up. I came to borrow a book or, on the off chance you were still awake, consult with you. But I don't really feel comfortable discussing the complexities of ethical integrity while your dick is in my face.”

Her snide quip was met with a derisive scoff, “It's not in your face, Captain. It’s across the room.”

Alysia stood rooted to her spot, refusing to look up or offer any reply.

With a melodramatic sigh, Max replied, “Fine. Better?”

She dropped her hand. Where he once held his book propped in one hand, arm lying comfortably on his thigh, he had rolled his wrist so that the book now in the most technical sense covered his privates from her view.

She raised an eyebrow at the scant attempt at decency then looked him in the eye. “Marginally.”

Max leaned onto his other hand, elbow resting on his thigh, and gave her a sympathetic look. “What moral ambiguity can I help make plain this evening?”

Alysia worried her bottom lip in thought. She had committed a great number of crimes and moral infractions since she awoke from her eternal slumber on the Hope. She had already talked with Max about some of it. But it all seemed to haunt her thoughts tonight.

She decided their most recent job would be as good a place to start as any. “Well, we just committed the highest level of corporate espionage by assassinating a man for his boarst factory to help a woman with whom,” she counted on her fingers the reasons Catherine Malin should not be trusted, “we have just met, is arguably not a very good person, and has antagonistic way about her that oddly turns me on.”

Max rolled his eyes. “We’ll leave your unfortunate arousal aside. That’s for you to work out by yourself.” He paused for a moment of consideration before continuing, “Whatever positive qualities Catherine Malin may or may not have, she does work for Sublight Salvage, a rather unassuming faction within Halcyon. Which could be a very good thing. Having a solid working relationship with them-” as he continued to speak, he started talking with his hands. The book he held moved away from its beneficial position.

Knowing full well what she’d see yet unable to stop herself, her eyes shifted down and got another clear view of his dick lazily hanging between his legs. “For fuck's sake, Max!” she shouted as she spun toward the door slamming her fist into the control pad. The door swished open. The cool air of the hallway washed over her like a breath of freedom. She stepped out of the room as quickly as possible.

“Maybe your first step should be coming to terms with your aversion to nudity!” He called after her.

She shouted back over her shoulder, “Goodnight, Vicar!” as the door closed behind her. She stood there for a moment, her eyes wide, trying to process even a portion of what had just happened without cringing, laughing, screaming or some odd mix of the three. The red-hot flush that had covered her face from the moment she’d entered the room was finally starting to dissipate.

“Ha!” came from further down the hall on her right. Then there was a soft thump of a body hitting a hard surface.

Slowly, almost afraid of what she would find, Alysia turned her head toward the noise. Nyoka leaned into the wall, feet twisted oddly, held up mostly by the friction of her face against the wall. She gave Alysia a wide grin that was partially smooshed by the flat surface. “Just found out the good vicar sleeps in the nude, did ya?” she chirped, nose crinkling in delight. Her bright red coils of hair bounced as she chuckled.

“How did you find out?” Alysia asked.

She shrugged which was a bit difficult in her current position. “Stumbled in one night thinking it was my room.” She smiled as she remembered it. “He is,” she tapped a finger against the wall with each syllable,” one whole snack.” Then she chuckled again.

Alysia groaned as the image of Vicar Max reentered her mind front and center. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

At this, Nyoka pushed herself up to a standing position, leaving a hand on the wall to steady herself. Her brow furrowed into a deeply judgmental look, “Why not? Those thighs, girl? Unf!”

Alysia threw her hands out. “Stop! Stop it!” she ordered. Then forced out an insistent, “Goodnight, Nyoka,” through gritted teeth. She turned on her heel and headed toward her own quarters.

“Only if those thighs visit me in my dreams!” shouted Nyoka after her.

Alysia shuddered but continued on without another look back to Nyoka or the vicar’s room. The whole night was a bewildering mess, and she really just wanted some sleep. As her own bedroom doors swished closed behind her, she cursed to herself. She didn’t even have a book for all her troubles. Sleep, in all its warm cozy trappings, would most likely allude her for another night. And as an added bonus, she had a few new images to haunt her waking dreams.


End file.
